Chinese mobile laundry service Bear Butler nabs $960k angel investment

Tired of doing your laundry? In China, there’s an app for that. And that app – Chinese O2O startup Bear Butler – has just raised RMB 6 million (US$960,000) in angel funding to continue its dry-cleaning dreams. According to Sina Tech, the new cash will be used to optimize the startup’s workflow and build out a management team.

Bear Butler is a mobile app and Taobao shop that allows users to book and pay for laundry service. Bear Butler takes charge of pretty much everything else: they’ll send someone to pick up the laundry at your place, wash it, and then drop it back off clean so that you can forget about the entire laundry process. Of course, that sort of service does come at a cost: RMB 9 (US$1.44) per article of clothing and an additional RMB 50 (US$8) for pickup/dropoff. Trickier items of clothing and bedding have their own prices.

Bear Butler is way more expensive than a laundromat, and it wouldn’t take many loads of clothing for it to be more expensive than buying your own washing machine, too. But the service could well catch on with China’s upper-class young urbanites, who have cash to burn, a preference for trendy O2O services, and a desire for convenience even at significant extra cost.

(Source: Sina Tech)